Digital Marketing

My first Digital Marketing post!

Hi! My name is Sophia Pandey and I’m currently a junior at Western Washington University pursuing a double concentration in MIS and Marketing and an e-commerce developer certificate. I have to admit, MIS is my first love, however I’m sure that after this class I will have a new appreciation for marketing. Out of all of the marketing electives offered at Western, I’ve been looking forward to taking Digital Marketing the most because of what I’ve been hearing from other marketing students.

I feel like the structure of the class and the reading make it a much more interactive class compared to some of the other business classes I’ve been taking. I like that instead of having a textbook, that in my opinion are usually extremely overpriced, we’re instead being assigned relevant and engaging articles to read and critique. I am also excited to start a blog for this class because I’ve always wanted to start a blog however I haven’t really known where to start.

I am most excited to learn more about google analytics and ultimately become certified in it because I feel like in today’s job market it is a very important and relevant skill to possess.

The Articles:

After reading the article, Knowledge and Skill Requirements for Marketing Jobs in the 21st Century I was pleasantly surprised and excited that Seattle was on the top 5 cities they chose because ideally I’d like to have a job and move to Seattle after I graduate. I was also glad to see that database skills and possessing more technical skills was considered important in today’s marketing job environment. This relatively new need for technical skills in the job market is one of the reasons why I’m pursuing a degree in MIS and the e-commerce developer certificate. This article also made me appreciate the skills that I learned in Wendy’s MKTG 381 Research Marketing class. I also found it interesting how the article focused on research methods and research questions which I feel is particularly relevant due to the fact that the customer is the main focus on marketers now which isn’t how it always was.

For the next article, US Interactive Marketing Forecast, 2011 to 2016, I felt that their discussion about interactive components was expected because I know personally that I prefer to receive advertisements or emails that have interactive components to them from companies. I was also glad to see that social media marketing has increased dramatically in the last few years which I feel is the right direction for marketing to me moving in because I can’t remember the last time I was without my phone or laptop. When I thought about it, the last time I didn’t have my phone was during a trip to Mexico where I didn’t have service and it felt weird to turn back on my phone after 8 days and try to catch up on everything I had missed via email and on multiple social media platforms as well. I feel that many of my peers are the same way which make social media marketing and mobile marketing a very important field for many companies to utilize to their full potential. I was surprised though that email marketing is projected to continue to grow in the future because I personally feel that I rarely use email to communicate with anyone outside of classes at WWU.

Finally, for the article State of Digital Marketing Talent, there were several points touched on that I felt were significant. I was drawn in by the quote, “While 71% of large brand/enterprise organizations believe their digital marketing team is strong in some areas, their employees exhibit mediocrity/ weakness in others when importance and strength are analyzed together, with sizeable gaps in every area studied.” I found this to be interesting because it not only illustrates the current gap in digital marketing and big businesses, but it also illustrates how some businesses are having a hard time keeping up with the changing times and are reluctant to thoroughly analyze the positives and negatives of their current business. Another quote that caught my attention in the article was, “We need to strengthen our social media presence.” I found this quote to be interesting because one of the struggles of marketing is not only determining your brand and mission statement but also effectively communicating this to your customers and potential customers on channels they regularly use. When thinking about it, I can think of many brands and companies that target young adults but don’t have a strong social media presence. Also, there are brands and businesses who don’t use social media to their full potential as well.